Traveling and Petershausen, Germany

(Several days late; wrote this post on Thursday Aug 19)

Amtrak to Richmond.

We took the train from Davis to Richmond, and then transferred to BART to get to SFO.  All our transfers went as well as they could, and we were sitting at the gate over an hour before boarding.  The flight to London was about 10 hours.  We stayed awake for a bit, watched some 30 Rock on our personal TV sets in the headrests.  They fed us dinner (airline food, but it was alright) and then we both crashed for about 5 hours.  Woke up in time for ‘breakfast’ (which was far less edible than dinner).

We landed in Heathrow and then had two hours to transfer planes to fly to Munich.  Heathrow is absolutely huge, so we had to walk through this large building to catch a bus to an entirely different terminal building.  Before we got on the bus, my dad realized he had left his coat on the plane.  He left me sitting at the bus terminal (inside, with airport security around, don’t worry) with all of our bags while he ran back through the airport to try to retrieve it.  He was gone for about half an hour, but was unsuccessful.  The airport people wouldn’t let him go look for it.  Instead, we have to hope that the cleaning crew turns it in instead of just keeping it and then track it down through United/Lufthansa.  And in the meantime, we go shopping.  At the end of the day, it’s just a coat.  It’s covered under our flight insurance, and it’s replaceable.

On the plane from San Francisco to London.

We realized at that point that we only had an hour to catch our next flight.  When we arrived at the other terminal building, we took off and asked an employee where we were supposed to go.  He looked at our boarding passes (which a United agent had been kind enough to print for us in San Francisco) and ushered us into the ‘FastTrak’ security line.  We made it through in time to hustle down the terminal to the gates and arrive at the gates sweaty and tired, but made it there before they started boarding the plane.

We sat on the aircraft for a while without moving, and finally the captain came over the intercom and said something to the effect of “Sorry for the delay, folks.  Our plane is leaking so as soon as we fix it we’ll be underway.”  It terrified me.  He explained, though, that it was just leaking water because a cap hadn’t been screwed on properly or something. They fixed it and we left.

British Airways held true to its nationality and served us flavorless, greasy ‘crisps’ on the plane.  The flight was only about an hour and a half, and then the entire Hausmaninger family was waiting at the airport in Munich to pick us up.

These friends are people we have known since 1999.  Bernhard works for BMW USA in Munich, so we met him when we picked up our first BMW in Munich in 99.  We met him again when we picked up the second car in 2003, and then he and his family came to visit us in Davis in 2006.  He and my dad have become really good friends, and he and his entire family are incredibly welcoming: wife Tanja, daughter Anna, son Mattias, and baby Lina.

Our first meal in Europe.

We had dinner (pretzels and wurst, and beer) at a biergarten in Freising.  We tried to sit outside, but there were wasps all over the place.  For some reason they were only bothering our table.  We moved a few times and then gave up and went to sit inside.

After dinner we came to Petershausen and arrived at the Hausmaninger's home.  Their house is really cute—all full of IKEA furniture and German-ness.  My dad slept in the living room on the fold-out couch, and Anna has graciously given up her room to me for the weekend.  We both slept hard after our long day(s) of traveling, and now we’re up early.  Jet lag should disappear shortly.

This morning, we figured out the French Press in the kitchen and made some coffee, and my dad managed to figure out the difference between sugar and salt and avoided pouring the latter into my cup.  I’m sitting here updating this now while I attempt to keep Lina from pounding random letters out on my keyboard, and my dad is off to the bakery with Bernhard to pick up bread and things for breakfast.

Today (all weekend, really) we’re just relaxing with our friends and letting ourselves adjust to German time.  Work starts Monday.

Bis spaeter!